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Bingo draft zero is finished at last.

And two whole hours to go before the midnight deadline. Everyone involved in this challenge made it through with a finished script, and three new screenplays are birthed screaming and bloody into the world.

To be sure, mine doesn’t make much sense, it all goes a bit Scooby-Doo at the end, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever return to it because half way through it turned out that I was writing a kitchen sink play instead of the exciting heist movie that I thought was on the agenda, but that’s not the point.

The point is that it’s another finished draft, and these are always to be celebrated. Because each one makes you a better writer.

Now I just have to leave it for a month, come back, and see if there’s anything worth salvaging.

I’m going to lie down now.

If you’re not aware of it already (and if not, why not?) the most eagerly anticipated film of 2006 is Snakes on a Plane.

Thanks to the title (That’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title – Samuel L Jackson) there’s an Internet buzz about this that we haven’t seen since The Blair Witch Project.

So much so, that the moviemakers held a competition: Create a song about Snakes on a Plane. And the best one will appear in the film.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Captain Ahab.

Arthur Curry takes a meeting.

Genius.

I’m not participating in the 14 day screenwriting challenge.

This is mostly because I don’t think it’s do-able. (At least, not for people who haven’t been training for months in high-altitude screenwriting training camps in the mountains.)

90 pages over 14 days is about 6.5 pages a day. That’s a hard slog for a professional writer working from an outline. A hundred pages would be more than seven a day. In addition to the day job.

I’m just not that good yet.

Larry Brody – who’s worked in television for an awful long time (and has the credits to prove it) averages seven pages a day working on a pilot or TV movie.

This is a guy who has had a hell of a lot of practice.

Joe Straczynksi (credits) wrote 10 pages a day rain or shine for many many years.

Ditto.

Trying to keep up with these guys in your first race is gonna kill ya. And if you haven’t got an outline (or twenty years of practice so you can just internalise the whole process), then it’s goodnight vienna.

In December last year I got into a pissing contest with a screenwriting friend who, like me, didn’t have a feature spec. A complete Draft Zero, from nothing, in two months.

I spent the first month outlining and the second writing.

Thanks to the outline, I could then manage an average of four pages in two hours of an evening. Just about enough to get the draft finished in a month and still have a day off here and there. But it was still bloody hard work.

(William, of course, left his to the last minute and ended up writing 40 pages on the day of the deadline. And his was still better written than mine. Bastard.)

This last two months (fortmonth?), we’re at it again. And with a fresh competitor in the race.

I’m in the end stretch, and I’m doing five pages a night in two hours (if I’m lucky) or three (if I’m not).

The effort’s damn near killing me, but I think it’s do-able, thanks to the outline.

Just.

So I have this to say to everyone that took up the 14 day screenwriting challenge:

You’re mad.
But I like you.

Good luck over the next four days.

I always liked to think of myself as a fairly tolerant man, but I suppose that it had to happen eventually.

I have found my personal squick line.

I have met and enjoyed the company of many people who happily describe themselves as being furry. If they enjoy the adventures of, or the lifestyles of, anthropomorphic animals, who am I to say them nay? Just because it is Not My Thing does not stop it from being a valid lifestyle choice.

I even believe that some of the more spiritual furs possess a strong case for being inheritors of the lost western shamanic traditions as espoused by Professor Brian Bates.

In addition to which, what consenting adults get up to with other consenting adults is none of your damned business. Or mine.

However.
However.

Yesterday, I saw the edge of the map. The section marked: “Here be dragons”.

And I recoiled.

Perhaps I’m just not strong enough to face the awful truth.
So here I stand, and say “Thus far, and no further.”

I do not ever again wish to see the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler represented by anthropormorphic personages.

Dog-based, unless I miss my guess.

And that goes for all the rest of the Doctors too.
And Star Trek.
And Battlestar Galactica.
And EastEnders.

There is a reason why there is a bottom rung on the geek hierarchy.

I beg you not to stand there.

Let’s take a moment to look at Star Trek’s holodeck.

We know that it is capable of creating realistic facsimiles of an environment through the use of force-fields and matter conversion systems, such as are used in the replicator units.

A replicator can make any one of a number of foodstuffs, materialising it from raw matter. This matter must come from somewhere. On a closed system such as a starship, we can posit that it is stored somewhere on the ship, waiting to be dematerialised, then rematerialised in a replicator or on a holodeck.

So a holodeck can recreate practically any scenario. What do you think the crew of a starship are going to be using these 24th century facilities for?

That’s right. The driver of technological advances throughout time.

Porn.

And not just rude pictures either. The holodeck can use its force-fields and matter conversion systems to allow all sorts of simulated naughtiness to occur. And there’d be no need for prophylactics, because a holopartner could never become pregnant, or infect you with an STD.

So we can also assume that various bits of waste are left in the holodeck after a session. How do you suppose we clean the holodecks?

Well, given that the holodecks use transporter technology, and that we are on a closed system such as a starship, I think that we can safely say that it’s dematerialised for later use as raw matter in a replicator system.

We are all of us, in a very real sense, eating Commander Riker’s jizz.

The gloves are off in this comments thread over at The Artful Writer as various A-listers debate what a Writers’ Guild should do for its membership.

Educational.

Ah, Eurovision time again.

A little history:

Back in 1954, a consortium of Television Companies in Europe, the European Broadcasting Union, began to share their programmes across a Europe-wide network. At first by landline, later by satellite.

This network was named Eurovision.

As well as sharing plays, documentaries, and sports programmes across the network, the Eurovision Song Contest (as it’s now known) was launched in 1956 to find popular music from all members of the consortium. The contest has run every year since.

The European Broadcasting Union has now grown to 74 members, including Israel and Russia – which is why they’re entitled to enter the Song Contest despite not being in Europe.

Obviously with so many different cultures, the range of entries is quite wide, and it’s always a bit of a mystery who’ll win. Some have accused the Contest of churning out far too many sappy ballads.

There’s some truth to this.

But this year, oh this year, there was a clear winner from the get-go.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the well-deserved winners of Eurovision 2006: the Finnish Hard Rockers Lordi, with Rock Hallelujah.

Monsters who sing. What’s not to love?

Steven Moffat is one of the greatest TV writers in the world.

Coupling is probably the show he’s best known for. It lasted four series in the UK. He’s also written for Doctor Who. As well as being a bit of a fan.

So when someone asked him on the Outpost Gallifrey message board what happened after the last episode, he told them. As I couldn’t link to the post because the registration system is down, I asked Mr Moffat if I could repost it here.

So here you are, Coupling fans.

Closure.

Originally Posted by IMForeman

My only complaint: I need closure on this. I know it’s unlikely any “ending” will be made, but I just need closure! I need to know if Jane and Oliver work out. I need to know if Sally actually gives Patrick a slightly less rude answer to his proposal. I need to know that Susan was ok after the C-Section, and what kind of neurotic father Steve made. I NEED TO KNOW!!!!

Ok, that’s me venting for today. Move along. Nothing more to see.

Oh, all right.

Sally said yes to Patrick, they got married and are very happy. Especially as Sally beat Susan to the altar, and finally did something first. Patrick is now a completely devoted husband, who lives in total denial that he was anything other an upstanding member of the community. Or possibly he’s actually forgotten. He doesn’t like remembering things because it’s a bit like thinking.

Jane and Oliver never actually did have sex, but they did become very good friends. They often rejoice together that their friendship is uncomplicated by any kind of sexual attraction – but they both get murderously jealous when the other is dating. Jane has a job at Oliver’s science fiction book shop now – and since Oliver has that one moment of Naked Jane burnt on the inside of his eyelids, he now loses the place in one in every three sentences. People who know them well think something’s gotta give – and they’re right. Especially as Jane comes to work in a metal bikini.

Steve and Susan have two children now, and have recently completed work on a sitcom about their early lives together. They’re developing a new television project, but it keeps getting delayed as he insists on writing episodes of some old kids show they recently pulled out of mothballs. She gets very cross about this, and if he says “Yeah but check out the season poll!” one more time, he will not live to write another word.

Jeff is still abroad. He lives a life a complete peace and serenity now, having taken the precaution of not learning a word of the local langauge and therefore protecting himself from the consequences of his own special brand of communication. If any English speakers turn up, he pretends he only speaks Hebrew. He is, at this very moment, staring out to sea, and sighing happily every thirty-eight seconds.

What he doesn’t know, of course, is that even now a beautiful Israeli girl he once met in a bar, is heading towards his apartment, having been directed to the only Hebrew speaker on the island. What he also doesn’t know is that she is being driven by a young ex-pat English woman, who is still grieving the loss of a charming, one-legged Welshman she once met on a train. And he cannot possible suspect that (owing to a laundry mix-up, and a stag party the previous night in the same block) he is wearing heat-dissolving trunks.

As the doorbell rings, it is best that we draw a veil.

Steven Moffat